Marxism 101

The riots on campuses across the country last year and this year, have caused over R400 million in damage to property, and many have warned that if universities do not re-open, and if students are prevented from writing exams, the consequences could be catastrophic for the whole country.

Their Goal is ChaosIf you are wondering why the student protesters (or rioters) do not realise that the shutdown of universities across the country is actually self-destructive to not only them and every other student, and especially the economy, this is because their goal is, in fact, chaos and the dismantling of every last vestige of Christian civilisation. One further needs to understand, as Curtis Bowers puts it in the Agenda2 film, that the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. University fees, racism or colonialism, whether real or contrived, are issues that Marxists use to provoke tension and strife, to sweep up the masses for revolution. Whilst most rioters may not know that they are being used as pawns in a global communist agenda, such riots and the chaos they cause, are in fact, Marxism 101.

DestructionKarl Marx loved to quote the words of Faust: "Everything in existence is worth being destroyed."

"If there is a something which devours, I'll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins – the world which bulks between me and the abyss, I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses."

"Without violence, nothing is ever accomplished in history."

Capture the CultureThe goal of global communism is not only chaos, from which they believe utopia will emerge, but also the capturing of the culture, by marxising the inner-man, so that individuals, and therefore whole countries, would not just conform to their goals but would be completely anti-Christian in every aspect of their worldview.

That this has happened throughout the West, is all too evident from the crime and grime, paganisation of society and the persecution of Christians through anti-life, anti-family, anti-Christian legislation and court cases. If we are to understand how the global communists were able to achieve this, one needs to study the strategy developed by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, the co-founder of the Italian Communist Party.

The Gramsci Strategy Gramsci declared that to capture the Christian West one needed to “Marxise the inner man to alter the Christian mind – to turn it into its opposite in all its details – so that it would become not merely a non-Christian mind, but an anti-Christian mind.”

This meant getting individuals to think about life’s problems without reference to Christianity and the Laws of God. Gramsci advocated a quiet revolution: “Everything must be done in the name of man’s dignity and rights, and in the name of his autonomy and freedom from outside restraint. From the claims and restraints of Christianity above all.”

Cultural Termites Gramsci advocated working as a termite to erode the foundations and structures, eating out the Christian heart of Western institutions. Gramsci’s slogan was: “Capture the culture!”

Gramsci’s Grand Plan I will now be quoting extensively from an article by James Thornton, titled Gramsci’s Grand Plan, published on www.thenewamerican.com, 5 July 1999. I have slightly adapted it at several points. You can read the full article here.

Subverting Christian Faith The civilized world, Gramsci deduced, had been thoroughly saturated with Christianity for 2,000 years and Christianity remains the dominant philosophical and moral system in Europe and North America. Practically speaking, civilization and Christianity were inextricably bound together. Christianity had become so thoroughly integrated into the daily lives of nearly everyone, including non-Christians living in Christian lands, it was so pervasive, that it formed an almost impenetrable barrier to the new, revolutionary civilization Marxists wish to create. Attempting to batter down that barrier proved unproductive, since it only generated powerful counter-revolutionary forces, consolidating them and making them potentially deadly. Therefore, in place of the frontal attack, how much more advantageous and less hazardous it would be to attack the enemy's society subtly, with the aim of transforming the society's collective mind gradually, over a period of a few generations, from its former Christian worldview into one more harmonious to Marxism. And there was more.

Uniting the Left Whereas conventional Marxist-Leninists were hostile towards the non-Communist Left, Gramsci argued that alliances with a broad spectrum of leftist groups would prove essential to Communist victory. In Gramsci's time these included, among others, various "anti-fascist" organizations, trade unions, and socialist political groups. In our time, alliances with the Left would include radical feminists, extremist environmentalists, "civil rights" movements, anti-police associations, internationalists, ultra-liberal church groups, and so forth. These organizations, along with open Communists, together create a united front working for the transformation of the old Christian culture.

Winning Hearts and Minds What Gramsci proposed, in short, was a renovation of Communist methodology and a streamlining and updating of Marx's antiquated strategies. Let there be no doubt that Gramsci's vision of the future was entirely Marxist and that he accepted the validity of Marxism's overall worldview. Where he differed was in the process for achieving the victory of that worldview. Gramsci wrote that "there can and must be a 'political hegemony' even before assuming government power, and in order to exercise political leadership or hegemony one must not count solely on the power and material force that are given by government." What he meant is that it is incumbent upon Marxists to win the hearts and minds of the people, and not to rest hopes for the future solely on force or power.

Winning the Youth of the Elite Furthermore, Communists were enjoined to put aside some of their class prejudice in the struggle for power, seeking to win even elements within the bourgeois classes, a process which Gramsci described as "the absorption of the elites of the enemy classes." Not only would this strengthen Marxism with new blood, but it would deprive the enemy of this lost talent. Winning the bright young sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie to the red banner, wrote Gramsci, "results in [the anti-Marxist forces'] decapitation and renders them impotent." In short, violence and force will not by themselves genuinely transform the world. Rather it is through winning hegemony over the minds of the people and in robbing enemy classes of their most gifted men that Marxism will triumph over all.

Free-will Slaves Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a classic study of modern totalitarianism, contains a line that epitomizes the concept that Gramsci tried to convey to his party comrades: "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude." While it is improbable that Huxley was familiar with Gramsci's theories, the idea he conveys of free persons marching willingly into bondage is nevertheless precisely what Gramsci had in mind.

Mastery of Human ConsciousnessGramsci believed that if Communism achieved "mastery of human consciousness," then labour camps and mass murder would be unnecessary. How does an ideology gain such mastery over patterns of thought inculcated by cultures for hundreds of years? Mastery over the consciousness of the great mass of people would be attained, Gramsci contended, if Communists or their sympathizers gained control of the organs of culture — churches, education, newspapers, magazines, the electronic media, serious literature, music, the visual arts, and so on. By winning "cultural hegemony," to use Gramsci's own term, Communism would control the deepest wellsprings of human thought and imagination. One need not even control all of the information itself if one can gain control over the minds that assimilate that information. Under such conditions, serious opposition disappears since men are no longer capable of grasping the arguments of Marxism's opponents. Men will indeed "love their servitude," and will not even realize that it is servitude.

Steps in the Process The first phase in achieving "cultural hegemony" over a nation is the undermining of all elements of Christian civilisation. Churches are thus transformed into ideology-driven political clubs, with the stress on "social justice" and egalitarianism, with worship reduced to trivialized entertainment, and with Biblical doctrinal and moral teachings "modernized" or diminished to the point of irrelevancy. Genuine education is replaced by "dumbed-down" and "politically correct" curricula, and standards are reduced dramatically. The mass media are fashioned into instruments for mass manipulation and for harassing and discrediting traditional institutions and their spokesmen. Morality, decency, and old virtues are ridiculed without respite. Biblical Christians are portrayed as hypocrites and virtuous men and women as prudish, stuffy, and unenlightened.

Degenerate Heroes Culture is no longer a buttress supporting the integrity of the national heritage and a vehicle for imparting that heritage to future generations, but becomes a means for "destroying ideals and ... presenting the young not with heroic examples but with deliberately and aggressively degenerate ones," as theologian Harold O.J. Brown writes. We see this in contemporary life, in which the great historical symbols of our nation's past, including great presidents, soldiers, explorers, and thinkers, are shown to have been unforgivably flawed with "racism" and "sexism" and therefore basically evil. Their place has been taken by pro-Marxist charlatans, pseudo-intellectuals, rock stars, leftist movie celebrities, and the like. At another level, traditional Christian culture is condemned as repressive, "Eurocentric," and "racist" and, thus, unworthy of our continued devotion. In its place, unalloyed primitivism in the guise of "multiculturalism" is held as the new model.

Lawlessness We have long boasted that our nation is a government of law, not of men. Our law is derived directly from English Common Law and from Biblical Law that is at the root of English Common Law. One would therefore expect law to constitute one of the chief barriers against the subversion of our society. Instead, in the field of law, revolutionary change has become the order of the day, change so astounding that it could not have been imagined 30 years ago. None would have dreamed of the removal of prayer from Parliament, the legalisation of abortion as a constitutionally guaranteed "right," and the legalisation of pornography, to mention but three.

Subverting MarriageMarriage and family, the very building blocks of society, are perpetually attacked and subverted. Marriage is portrayed as a plot by men to perpetuate an evil system of domination over women and children. The family is depicted as a dangerous institution epitomized by violence and exploitation. Patriarchally oriented families are, according to the Gramscians, the precursors of fascism and every organised form of racial persecution.

Homosexual and illicit heterosexual unions have been elevated to the same level as Biblical marriage. Benefits previously reserved to married couples are now granted to unmarried sexual "partners." Even the word "family" is slowly being superseded by the vague euphemism "household."

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption." 2 Peter 2:19

The Good Fight It may seem to some that the situation in the West is hopeless and that no force or agency can possibly put a halt to the insidious strategies working to destroy us. Despite the grim chronicle of the past 60 or 70 years, however, there is still much that may be done and much reason for hope. Christians still possess the freedom to avoid and escape the mind-altering, social conditioning of the Gramscians. They have the power to shield themselves from these influences and especially to shield their young. There are Biblical Christian alternatives to the news media, public schools, television, trashy movies, and mind-numbing, immoral pop, hip-hop and rock “music”, and those alternatives must be embraced. These propaganda machines and cultural poison must be excluded from our lives.

Those in charge of young people have an especially weighty responsibility. Despite all of the efforts of the radical left and of their sympathizers in the schools and media to transmute young people into savages, they must not be allowed to succeed, because disorganized minds — mental vortices of anarchism and nihilism — have no powers of resistance. Savages soon become slaves. Children and youths should be thoroughly evangelised and then discipled in a Biblical Worldview. They need to be taught inspiring examples of Christian excellence. In school, the young must be required to adhere to high standards of scholarship.

Similarly, they will better be able to retain civilized values and maintain healthy minds if they are encouraged to learn to love their Christian cultural inheritance through good literature, poetry, music, and art.

We as citizens must also exercise our persuasive powers over our elected representatives. In doing this our mind-set must be one of demanding absolute non-compromise from politicians. Likewise, in choosing elected representatives at every level, we must look to men and women who refuse to compromise.

Just as importantly, the honourable, uncompromising men and women we elect to represent us must be made aware of the Gramscian strategy of cultural subversion; they must be able to recognize the tactics and strategies being used to undermine the institutions upon which our liberties depend. Building that understanding will, in turn, require the creation of an educated and principled electorate that will impart this wisdom to our representatives — and hold them accountable once they have been entrusted with elective office.

We should never allow ourselves to be stampeded, herd like, into forming opinions and judgments stimulated and orchestrated by the sensationalism of the press and the other media masters. Instead, we must calmly resist their mind-control techniques. We must strive to be independent, critical thinkers. Realising that we are not alone, we should join forces with pro-life, pro-family, Biblical Worldview-based media and ministries, churches and political organisations and there lend our voices and support to the creation of bastions of resistance to the Gramscian onslaught.

Finally, we must never give up our faith in God and in His promises to fulfil the Great Commission through us. God, with His infinite power and love for us, will never forsake us but will, by His Grace, answer our prayers and reward our efforts, as long as we are obedient to Him and are continually being “transformed by the renewing of our of minds” (Romans 12:2). Marxism — and whatever other flags the total state parades under these days — are not inevitable and are not the wave of the future. As long as we think and act Biblically, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we cannot fail.

"Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for Me against the workers of iniquity?" Psalm 94:16Recommended Resources